A lesson from God...and my students.

Silence. For months now, I've been silent in the blogging world. Many of those days were fulfilling, energy enriching days. I love teaching. I'm passionate about kids, and community, and making the classroom a place where life learning, not just book learning, takes place. I get jazzed up when my students ask hard questions that require deep thinking and processing. But like everyone else, I'm only human. The brown, snowless winter, the little quirks and annoyances of 11 year olds, the nagging desire for change in some way but no outlet for change to take place, the endless weeks of inner ear problems, and the February blues had all taken their toll on me. The stress of it all culminated over the weekend and took me out with one giant, debilitating migraine. So first I had my say with God: "I would be so much happier if it would snow so I could enjoy winter." And "I know they're good kids, but they can't seem to settle down in the classroom." And on and on. I tried to bargain with God -like if He would just fix these things then I would be back to my normal, optimistic self. So I tried bargaining, all the while I had this gut feeling: GRACE. "My grace is sufficient for you." Wait, what was that, God? Your grace is sufficient for me? I don't think you understand. Have you looked at all these circumstances outside my control?

I've been known to learn some lessons the hard way. Here I was in my own selfishness, self-pity, and pride, miserable because I had forgotten that EVERY SINGLE DAY I wake up in endless, boundless, limitless grace. Grace that I don't deserve. It doesn't matter if I'm physically unwell or if my students are off the chart unproductive. I STILL LIVE IN THE BEAUTY OF GRACE. I don't know about you, but I find that extremely humbling.

I spent a lot of God and Britta time over the weekend - I would say I poured out my heart, confessed the most selfish of my desires, laid them at His feet. And after a very difficult couple of days, and a sick day from teaching, I walked into a classroom Tuesday morning, where I was humbled all the more. This time I was humbled by my own students. Because for weeks while I was wallowing in my own self-pity, they were still rooting for me. They didn't quit the team. Yep, humbled is probably an understatement.

And there it is: grace. For the moments when I need it the most: G-R-A-C-E.

All the Things You Didn't Think About...

When you're working towards that college degree, working towards one day becoming a teacher, you don't necessarily think about or realize all the lunches you won't be able to sit down and enjoy, or all the evenings you won't spend out with your friends because you're writing or grading tests, or all the times you'll have your every error pointed out to you because you work with preteens every day. You don't consider the exhaustion that comes with parent/teacher conferences and Christmas and spring musicals. You don't think about your Friday nights being spent wrapping up everything from the past week, or about spending Sunday afternoons organizing your teaching life for the next week.    

Do you know what else you don't realize when you're preparing for that one-day teaching career? You don't realize that your biggest teaching moments won't happen in the middle of math class, they'll happen when real life seeps into your classroom through everyday life struggles. You don't realize that the quiet-kid-free lunches you give up and spend with your students will mean the world to them. You also don't realize that there is nothing like the satisfaction of reaching the end of the day completely and utterly in love with the career you have immersed yourself in.

When you wake up every day loving what you do, well, that's something money can't buy. Did you consider that?

Say it with a straight face... or at least without laughing.

Ever have one of those times where you set a guideline (being the adult that you are) and when it comes your turn to play by the rules, you miss the mark? I've had more than one but today won't soon be forgotten by my students. Each school day 2 selected students from my class announce the "ACS News." This includes birthday announcements, lunch menus, predicted weather forecasts, etc. Due to my extremely small class size this year, one of my students asked if I would do the news with him this week. Well, the ACS News isn't super high tech -it's announcements on the school PA system. There is no redoing or recording. One stipulation in doing the news is that the "anchors" must take it seriously -no goofing around. So today I am beginning to announce the morning news with my sidekick, a 5th grader, and about 4 words into the lunch menu I misread "homemade marinara meat sauce" as "homemade marinara meat sausage" and upon realizing my error begin to laugh. The menu normally begins with a main dish. What is this non-sense about sauce?! Unable to keep my composure I have to turn off the announcements for a brief break. When I get back on, doing my very best to take it seriously I glance up from the speaker to see my principal looking at me, a smirk spread across his face. Let's just say, I may not have entirely kept it together. Turns out, my students take the morning news more seriously than I do. Props to them.

Be who you are

You know, I can't remember the last time I had a "bad day." Honestly. As a teacher, one of my goals is to create a classroom where my students feel loved and accepted for who they are. What's funny is that I don't put myself into that equation -I'm not trying to create a place where I feel loved and accepted. Yet, in the beautiful bond that has formed among the students in my class, I have found myself loved and accepted among them. Here's a couple of examples:


I have a very respectful, orderly class this year (I've told them since day 1 of school: "We are a class of order, not a class of chaos." and, thankfully, it has stuck.). Lunch is difficult though because several classes are eating in the lunchroom and it can easily get rowdy. Well, after one or two teacher complaints about the goofy-ness taking place at the 5th/6th grade table at lunch I decided that I would eat lunch with them a couple days a week -not as a punishment -simply as a way to help manage the lunchroom for the teacher on duty and to spend some out of class time with my students. For any teachers out there, you know that giving up an already short lunch period is a real sacrifice. But in this case it has turned into one of the highlights of my day. My students excitedly ask me every day if I'm going to eat with them -and when the answer is occasionally no, they are quite offended! What's been interesting is that my presence doesn't quiet or silence them or bring about forced conversation, it's still a natural flow to their lunch period.


Secondly, while on morning duty the other day, one of my 5th graders came sprinting into the waiting area (because we don't have a bus system, students are dropped off anytime after 8 and the teacher on duty supervises until everyone is dismissed to their classrooms at 8:15.). She stopped just short of me, with a huge smile on her face. I said, "Wow, you couldn't get here fast enough. School must be the best place to be!" She kept her big smile and said, "It is!" The cool thing is, this girl comes from a great family, she has a great home life, and so I know school is not simply a safe haven for her.


Lastly, while my students were studying their Bible memory verse this past week, a few of them were saying how hard it is to memorize things like that. One of the other students suggested making it into a song because "it's way easier to learn that way." Some of the girls seemed fine with this idea, but the rest of the girls and the boys seemed to turn their noses up at the idea. So I chimed in, "Or you could rap it" and I began to make a rap of their Bible verse. It was obviously poorly done, but got several laughs and when I finished one of my 6th graders blurted, "Miss Sjoberg, that is why you are the best teacher ever." I wasn't trying to win any teacher awards by turning a Bible verse into a rap, but I'm sure the whole experience will not be soon forgotten by anyone.

Failure or success?

Failures and successes are just a part of life and that's certainly true in the teaching world. The thing is, I'm not sure if this story is a success story or a total failure on my part as a teacher. But here it is:

I pretty consistently push the "reduce, reuse, recycle" philosophy in my classroom. It's something I'm passionate about and I think it's important that my students learn to use their resources well. When that really back-fired on me was when I started receiving homework assignments on reused paper. They were literally squeezing words in wherever there was space on the already-used-once page. My first reaction was disgust because it made my life more difficult as I tried to read and grade their assignments. My second response was a pure amusement -way to take me seriously, kids.

As another story, last week I reached my limit in picking up/vacuuming little tiny scraps of paper. So I removed the scrap paper box and had a demonstration with my students about what scraps are acceptable to keep and be used again and what pieces are too small and simply need to be thrown away. I had a couple of students who were devastated at the scraps I was throwing away. They very respectfully asked me if they could keep a personal stash of the scraps and that they would use them.
Thus began the masterpieces... and today I received the first one with the following note: "This is to prove to Miss Sjoberg that we want to save scrapes to make a piece of art."

Ok, so I need to focus on spelling and grammar and not resourcefulness. Here's to another day of teaching!

What's happening in the silence

It's been 6 weeks or so since I posted. Let me start off by saying the very nature of my blog and the fact that I've been silent for a while now are no indication of how my life (in general, but more specifically as a teacher) is going. In fact, the last several months have been some of the most rewarding months of my life.

I LOVE WHAT I DO EVERY SINGLE DAY. My first year of teaching was a lot of "I should have done that differently" and "Why didn't I plan for that to happen?" and "Just put one foot in front of the other: one class period at a time." Now, I'm no perfect teacher --I'm still learning from my mistakes every day. But I've taken my rookie teacher failures and turned them into opportunities to learn about myself, my teaching, and my students.

Teaching in a small, private school gives me a unique opportunity: my class is tight-knit --for better or for worse. That's a truly beautiful thing: we see each other at our best and our worst because we spend 40 hours or so a week together. We celebrate our victories. We learn from our mistakes. We console each other through losses. We're navigating our ship through the delicate preteen years of life, and while I may be the captain of this ship, it's an effort from my whole crew that keeps us above water and headed in the right direction.

For those who know me personally, life's thrown some curve balls at me the last month or two. In those challenges I've been humbled by the families at school, and more specifically by my students. For someone who finds it difficult to accept help, I've been given no choice at times. Many would argue that 10, 11, and 12 year olds are rather preoccupied with themselves. I'm here to tell you that not all of them are. My students have shown me compassion, love, and grace in some of life's finest moments of defeat. The maturity and responsibility that they have demonstrated at times is admirable, to say the least.

My hiatus from blogging could be summed up in this way: I've been too busy loving life to sit down and write about it.

It's almost Christmas, don't stress...

Sometimes, when you are a teacher, you have really cool ideas. With those ideas, generally one of the following things happens: 1.) you plan, you account for possible reactions/behavior from your students, and the lessons goes without a hitch (these are rare, but beautiful moments). 2.) More likely you plan, you account for possible reactions/behavior from your students, and something goes wrong, if not terribly wrong (the internet stops working, the groups you made are much more argumentative than you planned for, the students are unable to come to the conclusion you had hoped to lead them to, etc.) or 3.) you plan this really cool project and it ends up being much, much more time consuming than you anticipated and now you feel the stress of time. You don't want your students to hurry and finish in a sloppy fashion, and yet, how much more time can you afford to give up?

Well, I'm currently dealing with the third scenario. At the beginning of the school year a publishing company contacted teachers all over the country, offering them a free publication of a book their classes could write. Going with the confidence of a second year teacher, I jumped at the opportunity. I have to say, my class has worked really hard on this book and I've been really impressed, but we have a bit of a ways to go. And our final draft for submission is due this Friday. It's going to be a week of authors' and illustrators' workshops. Wish us your best! :)

The life of a teacher

Here are a few memes to give you a fairly accurate glimpse into my job:

Just Take the First Step

It's quite possible that a day doesn't go by that in some form or another I ask a student or several students to step outside of their comfort zones. I may not say it like that, but the content may be beyond what they are comfortable with, the learning setting might stretch them, they might have to work with people they don't get along with...and the list goes own.

I suppose it's only fair that I demonstrate to them how I've been pushed outside my comfort zone. Today was a perfect example. The P.E. teacher had mentioned (more than once) that if I "ever wanted to join them for P.E." she could use an extra person (with eleven 5th & 6th graders I guess that's fair). Well, anyone who knows me knows how much I love the outdoors including hiking, biking, canoeing, and swimming. However, I am far from athletically coordinated. Anyone who knows 5th & 6th graders knows how brutally honest and judgmental they can be --you can imagine my excitement about participating in P.E. Yet, I did it. I got out and played soccer --a sport I never spent anytime doing. As in, zero energies from my childhood were focused on soccer. I wiped out. I got tired. I wasn't confident in my abilities. And I would totally do it again.

A day in the life of...

Like I previously stated, every class is unique. I have a group of 5th & 6th graders who like getting stickers on their papers -especially scratch and sniff stickers. Who would have thought?! My class last year would have mocked and teased me incessantly if I had marked their papers with stickers (even if they had secretly enjoyed it).


In other news, I have picked up an additional job this semester working in our childcare/preschool after school two days a week. I have to say, they test my patience sometimes, but overall it's proven to be quite entertaining (no, I don't miss teaching preschool full time -still not my calling). There is one particular enthusiastic, extremely animated three year old girl. The first day I met her she acted like we were (and had been) best friends. As she was leaving one day (a day that I was not working in childcare) she stopped by my classroom to tell me about her day. When I saw her the following afternoon she ran to me, hugged me and exclaimed, "I haven't seen you in a long time...like 4 days!" I guess when you're 3 going 24 hours might feel like 4 days.

Pollution

Well we're here back in the swing of the school year. Every class has it's own uniqueness and that keeps life interesting.

We've been learning and talking about pollution in science and today I had my students respond to a writing prompt where I asked them to explain pollution to someone who didn't understand it. Here a few snippets of their responses:

"Polluted mean careless people leave junk around and so it can go into the water. It can make it hard to purify our water when that happens."

"Things that are okay to throw out the car window are apple cores, banana peels, orange peels, etc. The things that are not okay to throw out your car window are paper, Styrofoam, egg cartons, plastic, etc."

"Littering and pollution shouldn't be happening because we need stuff to eat. We need air, but if this keeps happening we will die."


I think they get it.

Kids still saying the darnedest things...

School is out and summer is here. But, of course, I'm still spending lots of time with some kiddos this summer. I'm nannying for a family with three kids (ages 2 to 8) a couple days a week. Thankfully, they have not disappointed me in the things they say. Here are a few:

I sang a few lines to a song when the 5 year old jumped in: "You could sing that in your mind."

"There's a tornado coming tomorrow so we're probably going to have to come stay with you."

"How are old are you? 24? Wow, you are OLD."

While playing a matching game: "If you put two cards that are the same beside each other when you are laying them out, that's cheating. [Someone] told me that and it made my heart a little sad. A lot sad actually."

We need a babysitter

My blog posts have been few and far between. Not because nothing funny ever happens but because I seem to have filled my time with things other than blogging. I still cherish and appreciate the humor I see in the classroom. Yes, the students are a little more cranky these days - it's spring and they're still in school, but there's something about spending 7 hours a day with these kids that whittles away at my heart - the truth is, I'll be sad to say goodbye to many of them after this year. Enough with the sappy stuff though, here's a couple highlights from the week:

Monday while giving a spelling pretest, I say the word "parachute." Suddenly a sixth grade boy breaks into song "I came in like a parachute." This will only mean something to those of you familiar with Miley Cyrus's song "Wrecking Ball." Any-who, it got the whole class laughing -myself included.

Secondly, while on lunch duty yesterday, and during the 5 minutes of quiet eating time, a second grade boy raises his hand. I walk over to him and ask what he needs. Student: "We don't have a babysitter this summer. [short pause]. So we were wondering if you would want to do that?"

Not a kid anymore

My 5th & 6th graders all have email accounts through the school. We use them frequently for school related things but the students also send personal emails back and forth. As domain administrator over them I can view the emails they send back and forth (just to make sure nothing inappropriate is going on). Well, just to keep them in check, I sometimes make reference to an email that was sent from one to another that I clearly was not part of. Two of the girls in my class send emails back and forth that seem to make no sense and I mentioned this to them back a while ago. Today, out of the blue, I received this email from one of them:

Subject: My gmails

"Ms. Sjoberg, I think that why you don't understand some of our emails is because you aren't a kid anymore. You are past the age of 18 and you are past college. If you think I am wrong then just say so, but that's what I think."

Using those resources!

The 5th & 6th graders would tell you they are on a new business endeavor, but I'm not sure it can be considered a business endeavor since the service is free. A public service, perhaps.

The sink in my classroom has had a dripping faucet since I took over this classroom in August but it seems to have gotten worse as the school year has progressed. I've mentioned it as a maintenance request but I don't think it's been a priority. Anyway, last week, my students decided  to measure the amount of water being wasted at our sink. It was a bit alarming when we realized how much was indeed being wasted. So we have a bowl permanently placed under the faucet to catch the dripping water. This morning it became apparent that we are not able to keep up (24/7 water collection) in using the water so when my students went to make the morning announcements to the school they announced the following: "Breaking news: the 5th & 6th graders will be providing free water to anyone who needs. Bring your water bottles down, kids!"

For a moment we thought no one was coming. Then in streamed 5-6 2nd graders with water bottles ready. My students welcomed them to the new business, filled their water bottles and left them with parting messages such as "Be sure to come back again" and "Tell your friends about us."

They are now in the process of trying to make a plan to discourage the use of the drinking fountain and instead use the water we have at hand. They are also trying to figure out how to reward frequent and faithful customers.We'll see where this leads. For now, I'm happy to have them channeling their energies to something of value.

I'm with Dr. King

From winter break to the winter blues: 5th and 6th graders fell prey to the winter blues not long into January. There just hasn't been a whole lot to blog about. But February has brought beautiful snow and the hope of downhill skiing (possibly as soon as this Friday).

Anywho, my students wrote essays inspired by Martin Luther King Jr. and here are some of the highlights.

"Why it is difficult for most people to [have peace] is because they might not want to forgive someone so they don't treat that person equally. They could be mad at someone and want revenge and even though revenge sounds like treating people equally, it's not."

"Martin Luther King Jr. thought outside of the box and saw what was going on in the real world and thought of how to fix it. I like how it's changed and we can make a difference too."

"I think peace is the right way to go. So I'm with Dr. King on that subject."

Are you calling me old?

The following dialogue took place today:

Student 1: "Miss Sjoberg, what is your favorite cartoon?"

Me: "Calvin and Hobbes."

Student 2 to Student 1: "What is that?"

Student 1: "How should I know? I'm not from her time!"

6th Grade Poetry

We're doing a poetry unit. And one of my students wrote this poem that he claims is not about me... but my name is Miss Sjoberg, I sometimes wear black glasses and I do have 13 students. I'm skeptical. For your entertainment:

Miss Spikeburg

With spidery legs that glow in sight

as the helpless children run in fright

with nerdish glasses so so black

you can see her fangs go on back

with 13 cutish, innocent kids

she'll be so awesome...

... or will she.

Freedom of Speech

I feel that teaching my students real life skills is a vital part of my job. In 5th & 6th grade a big part of that is responsibility. From Day 1 I've tried to make them responsible citizens of this classroom. When they leave out the reading bean bags, they find they are without those the following day. This is just one example.

Well, yesterday one of my students left his binder in the middle of the classroom floor. So I confiscated it. However, I  knew that he would need it today so I left him a note that said: "Your binder was found on the classroom floor. What are you willing to do today to get it back?" His solution: give a speech to the class - and a well dramatized speech it was. At the conclusion of his speech I asked for a copy of it. Here it is:

"Citizens of Sjoberg:
Responsibility is the source of growing up. Leaving your binders is not responsible. I think that Ms. Sjoberg taking my binder is very heinous, but I think all of us can prevent her from taking our stuff.
Say 'aye' if you agree with me.
Say 'aye' if you can fight back from her taking our stuff.
Then have RESPONSIBILITY.

Citizens of Sjoberg:
Have a fantastic day and victory is ours.
Yeah."

* I will note that I have never referred to my students as "citizens of Sjoberg" or anything along those lines That was all him.

Black widows and homemade deliciousness

Morning with 5th & 6th graders: "Miss Sjoberg, you look like a black widow. I think it's the hair."


Afternoon of parent/teacher conferences: homemade gluten free cookies from one my student's moms. If I used hashtags that one would be #winning